“Well,” he relented, “they may have it. But see that it is the last to-night.” And with that he strode across the room, and with a surly “Good-night” to his men, he mounted the stairs once more. He waited perhaps ten minutes in the chamber above, then he went to the casement, and softly opened the window. It was as he expected. With the exception of the coach standing in the middle of the yard, and just discernible by the glow of the smouldering fire they had built there but allowed to burn low, the place was untenanted. Believing him to have retired for the night, the men were back again in the more congenial atmosphere of the hostelry, drinking themselves no doubt into a stupor with that last can of drugged wine. He sat down to quietly mature his plans, and to think out every detail of what he was about to do. At the end of a half-hour, silence reigning throughout the house, he rose. He crept softly into Charlot's chamber and possessed himself of the Captain's outer garments. These he carried back to the sitting-room, and extracted from the coat pocket two huge keys tied together with a piece of string. He never doubted that they were the keys he sought, one opening the stable door and the other the gates of the porte-cochere. He replaced the garments, and then to make doubly sure, he waited yet--in a fever of impatience--another half-hour by his watch. It wanted a few minutes to midnight when, taking up his cloak and a lantern he had lighted, he went below once more. In the common-room he found precisely the scene he had expected. Both Charlot's men and his own followers lay about the floor in all conceivable manner of attitudes, their senses locked deep in the drunken stupor that possessed them. Two or three had remained seated, and had fallen across the table, when overcome. Of these was Mother Capoulade, whose head lay sideways on her curled arms, and from whose throat there issued a resonant and melodious snore. Most of the faces that La Boulaye could see were horribly livid and bedewed with sweat, and again it came into his mind to wonder whether he had overdone things, and they would wake no more. On the other hand, an even greater fear beset him, that the drug might have been insufficient. By way of testing it, he caught one fellow who lay across his path a violent kick in the side. The man grunted in his sleep, and stirred slightly, to relapse almost at once into his helpless attitude, and to resume his regular breathing, which the blow had interrupted. La Boulaye smiled his satisfaction, and without further hesitancy passed out into the yard. He had yet a good deal to say to Mademoiselle, but he could not bring himself to speak to her before her mother, particularly as he realised how much the Marquise might be opposed to him. He opened the carriage door. “Mademoiselle,” he called softly, “will you do me the favour to alight for an instant? I must speak to you.”